As long time readers of this blog know, I am a strong supporter of International Women’s Day (March 8th, which will be the 100th anniversary of IWD). It is, without qualification, the most inspiring day of the year when women around the world stand together to celebrate our lives and raise awareness about the full spectrum of women’s human rights needs–an end to violence, education, economic parity, healthcare, etc.

Each year on this blog, I try to highlight some of the many wonderful activities that are taking place throughout the world. This year due to extraordinary other demands on my time, I will not be able to devote as much time to this as in previous years, but I will be writing a few posts and I want to begin with this amazing idea,

a group of enterprising young Lebanese women, have created a “No Rights, No Women” movement to make the Lebanese community and law makers understand how it feels to be a “half-citizen”. On March 8th, International Women’s Day, the women and their supporters (myself included) will give up their “womanship” in favor of their “citizenship”. They will dress like men, act like men, talk like men, and even BE men.They are urging all who support the “No Rights, No Women” movement… to dress like men and act like men in their universities, offices, in coffee shops, on the streets, and in their homes.

Click the link above and you can join them on Twitter and Facebook. But here is the best part–you can join the movement from wherever you are by growing a ‘stache and posting a picture of yourself as a man. So to make it easy for you, here is a moustache you can cut out and use for your transformation (their website offers a variety of other styles if this doesn’t suit):

Today Lebanon, tomorrow the world!

If you know of a great IWD celebration, please post a link in the comments!

February 17, 2011Posted by Fempeace on February 17, 2011Comments Off on Great Idea for IWD–No Rights, No Women

Louis Nowra Needs a Good Vajazzling (an hilarious smackdown of a truly dreadful review of Germaine Greer’s work in the Australian magazine, The Monthly (yeah I know, spot on title so to speak)–fair warning, contains language)

As part of the observance of International Women’s Day this year, the United Nations, has chosen “Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for all.” as its theme. Sadly, in large measure achieving these ideals is still very much a work in progress.

While to be sure, there has been much progress in the last few decades, women still hold only a small fraction of elected offices. Women earn pennies on the dollar earned by their male counterparts while juggling the overwhelming burden of caring work for no pay at all.

In parts of the world, women are raped and murdered when they go to fetch water and firewood for their families. Schools for girls are fire-bombed and acid is thrown in the faces of girls who have the temerity to want an education.

When women are raped, they are accused of being adulterers and are stoned to death or in other ways killed to salvage their family’s honor. In many countries, young girls are still forced to undergo Female Genital Mutilation.

Abortion is still illegal, unsafe and/or inaccessible for many women and hundreds of thousands of women die unnecessarily from childbirth related reasons. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be attacked by fellow soldiers than by any enemy and women, particularly in Southeast Asia, are all too often victimized by sex traffickers and forced into prostitution near military bases or are trafficked into domestic slavery.

There is a word for this and it is misogyny. Unfortunately, we live in a world where things mostly operate on the notion that power comes from winning battles and controlling resources and people. Implicitly in such a system, you can not allow those you want to control to become equal. And in this world, there is a long history of men asserting control over women.

The only way this changes is to redefine empowerment. Imagine a world in which we lay claim to power that comes from the worthiness of how we conduct our own lives and how we connect with the world around us, rather than insisting that we must control things. For there to be equality of rights and opportunity, that is the paradigm change we will need to make. And in doing so, we can begin to become fully empowered and leave the damage of misogyny behind us.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!

The Feminist Peace Network is proud to participate in the Gender Across Borders Blog for IWD. To read more more fabulous blogs, click here. For more International Women’s Day coverage on the Feminist Peace Network, click here.

An ad hoc committee to celebrate Iranian women’s movement will host a rally in honor of International Women’s Day on March 7, 2010. The event is to be held in recognition of the courage and resilience Iranian women have shown during the last thirty one years of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) marks our commitment and continued affirmation this day and every day for the full recognition and fulfillment of women’s human rights and security in all spheres.

International Women’s Day is a day to acknowledge women’s rights for equal participation in economic and political decision-making, to celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of women, and to denounce gender discrimination and gender violence.

WILPF rejects the notion that gender equality has been achieved. On the 15th anniversary of the historic Beijing World Conference on Women, the United Nations must move without further delay to implement changes that it has repeatedly recognized as critical to fulfilling its mandate of working for gender equality as a crucial component of development, human rights, peace, and security.

UN Member States must also be held accountable for the commitments they have already made to women. This year marks the tenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which urges Member States to ensure increased representation of women in the prevention, management and resolution of conflict.

WILPF calls for full implementation of all four United Nations Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security (UNSCR 1325, 1820, 1888, and 1889).